Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: A major event in vertebrate evolution was the separation of the skull from the pectoral girdle and the acquisition of a functional neck, transitions that required profound developmental rearrangements of the musculoskeletal system. The neck is a hallmark of the tetrapod body plan and allows for complex head movements on land. While head and trunk muscles arise from distinct embryonic mesoderm populations, the origins of neck muscles remain elusive. Here, we combine comparative embryology and anatomy to reconstruct the mesodermal contribution to neck evolution. We demonstrate that head/trunk-connecting muscle groups have conserved mesodermal origins in fishes and tetrapods and that the neck evolved from muscle groups present in fishes. We propose that expansions of mesodermal populations into head and trunk domains during embryonic development underpinned the emergence and adaptation of the tetrapod neck. Our results provide evidence for the exaptation of archetypal muscle groups in ancestral fishes, which were co-opted to acquire novel functions adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle.
Source: Nature Communications
Institutions: Lyon 1 Université, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon, Evolution des Régulations Endocriniennes, Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades, Université de Bordeaux, University of Bristol, De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie, University of Zurich, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, University of Colorado Anschutz, Yale University, Sorbonne Université, Institut de Biologie Paris-Seine, University of Antwerp, Ghent University, Natural History Museum of Bern, Mécanismes Adaptatifs et Evolution, Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Biologie du Développement et Cellules Souches
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $6,790
Funders: National Science Foundation, Children's Hospital Colorado, University of Bristol, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, UZH Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Foundation for Research in Science and the Humanities, Natural Environment Research Council, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus
Awards: G1702991928, G175125242, Skull evolution and the terrestrialization and radiation of tetrapods, Chemical modulation of bromodomain function in development and disease, Investigating the cellular and molecular determinants of tetrapod neck morphogenesis, G7240651115, Deciphering the control of lateral mesoderm cell fates in zebrafish, G8558733089, Stem Cells in Regenerative Biology and Medicine
OpenAlex ID: W4404996952